


Ankle-Deep in Dirty Water, and Other Places to Fall in Love

by sashawire



Category: Free!
Genre: (sleeping bag actually), 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, F/F, Genderbending, Mild Body Issues, Pining, Rule 63, Sharing a Bed, rating is for violence! no sex, very briefly implied makoharu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22024648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashawire/pseuds/sashawire
Summary: Nagisa is slimy and slippery from the oily river. Her hair isjustlong enough to pull into a little bunny-tail at the base of her skull, though sopping wet like this, it more resembles a short, thick rat-tail. And her face is way,waytoo close to Rei’s thighs....Five times Rei wants to kiss Nagisa, and one time Nagisa kisses Rei.
Relationships: Hazuki Nagisa/Ryuugazaki Rei
Kudos: 9





	Ankle-Deep in Dirty Water, and Other Places to Fall in Love

**Author's Note:**

> Warning here for some pretty graphic violence. It appears in (i) and (v) if u wanna skip those.

i.

* * *

Rei meets Haruka, Makoto, and Nagisa in a shopping mall. An abandoned shopping mall.

It happens to be half-flooded, with grey mystery-liquid up to her ankles, and collapsing in on itself, if the sagging roof is any indication. And, as Rei finds out after she trips on submerged rebar and drops an armful of soup cans, it’s also swarming with wandering infected.

Rei is alone. She’s alone, has been separated from her brother for three weeks and is surrounded by ravenous wanderers.

She swings her old, splintering baseball bat until her muscles burn and her eyes are dry and her arms feel like they’re about to melt off her body, but they just keep spilling in through every gap available.

Rei begins to go through the standard motions for realizing that she might die  _ right there _ —the last time she had melon bread and barley tea really was the last time—when she meets  _ them. _

They’re a trio of dirty teenage girls equipped with various hand-made weaponry, but to Rei, in that moment, they look like angels.

They come crashing through a broken emergency exit, guns blazing (metaphorically), and just start swinging. A kicking mass of knives and sticks and struggled grunts. The tallest of the girls beheads two infected with one swing of her woodcutting axe.

Even with three extra pairs of hands behind her, it’s not easy to drive the swaths of infected back. By the time they manage to barricade the front door of the abandoned grocery store, all four are sweating visibly and sucking whistling breaths through their teeth.

Rei turns, ready to thank her saviors—or to collapse directly to the ground, whichever comes first—when, of course, one of the infected decide it’s not finished just yet.

It clambers to its feet and lunges, knobbly fingers outstretched and aimed directly at Rei’s throat. Rei’s mind goes through the  _ oh-god-I’m-going-to-die _ motions for the second time that day, extra quick this time.

A blur of pink and gold flashes from the side, knocking the infected off-course and onto the wet linoleum floor. The girl brings up the makeshift spear in her hand—it’s a knife duct-taped to the end of a broken mop handle—and shoves it down into the thing’s open, rotting mouth, and out the back of its throat.

It sputters, and stills.

The girl looks up at Rei. She’s the small one, with fluffy blonde hair. She has flecks of blood on her sleeves and the underside of her jaw, and she’s drenched up to her waist in the murky not-water that fills the entire shopping mall.

Rei feels like she’s having a second gay awakening.

“Hi,” the girl says, and smiles like the sun burning through fog, “I’m Nagisa!”

* * *

ii.

* * *

Two months later, it's raining outside.

The four of them are stuffed into the tiny, grumbly car that they had found five weeks back, creaking but sturdy, where the other cars that surrounded it had been warped with the heat and half-rotted with rust.

Nagisa is sticking her hand out the window to catch the wetness on her fingers. Initially, she'd stuck her head and tongue out, but Makoto had pulled her back without even glancing up from her book, like a kitten by the scruff of the neck.

It's Rei's shift to drive. She enjoys the pitter-patter of rain hitting the dusty, sun-cracked road, but the windscreen-wipers have long snapped off the car, so she has to slow down even more than normal to accommodate for poor vision through the sloshy glass.

“Rei-chan?” There's a tap on her shoulder. “Can I braid your hair?”

Rei is tall, and the driver's headrest had been long gone when they found the car.

“Sure,” Rei mutters absently, squinting through the windshield, and then Nagisa's fingers are on her neck.

Nagisa's nails are rough and uneven, and her fingers are calloused in odd places, and there's a scar running from the tip of her middle finger, slanting down to rest between her knuckles. These are symptoms of survival.

Her hands aren't long and graceful, not built for drawing or playing music or tying knots. Not for braiding hair either, from what Rei can gather from the fumbling and struggled noises from behind her as her hair is slowly, agonizingly pulled into a French plait.

Those hands also aren't built for fighting, not thick or sturdy. They aren't broad for punching or quick for clawing.

Nagisa's hands are small and strong. They are good at pulling. Her hands are made for drawing people towards her, to grab the front of their shirt or to pull at their elbow or to slot her fingers in between theirs.

Rei knows this from first-hand experience.

Nagisa ties Rei's hair off with a flourish, with one of the sparkly hairbands that always seem to appear on her wrists but no one knows how she actually aquires them.

Without even looking in a mirror, Rei knows that her braid is somewhat sloppy, pulling in some places and too loose in others. But she was raised correctly, so she thanks Nagisa anyway.

Rei wears that braid for four days, until the hairband slips off in the night.

* * *

iii.

* * *

Rei learns to swim in a city river.

When she’d revealed that she’s never wanted or been able to swim, she’s met with horrified gasps from Nagisa and Makoto, and some intense, intense blue stares from Haruka.

Apparently the three of them met through a childhood swim club. Swimming is important to them, to say the least. Rei’s never seen Haruka more emotive than when she’s talking about the  _ freedom _ and  _ beauty _ of being in the water.

As Rei stares down into the gunky mystery that is the river before her, she’s not quite sure if it can constitute as  _ water. _

“Come on, Rei-chan!” Nagisa calls from where she’s splashing around with Makoto. Rei managed to convince her to wear  _ some _ clothing while in the water, barely.

“G-Give me one moment!” Rei insists, sitting on the ledge, as she dips one foot in cautiously.

“Don’t do that, Rei,” Makoto says, rebraiding her hair to the side. “Nagisa’s going to pull you in.”

Nagisa, who was halfway through sneaking under the water, groans playfully.

Haruka floats, uncaring of the grubbiness of the water or the squabbling of her fellow survivors. Rei wishes she had something that made her as blissful as water makes Haruka.

“Rei-cha-an,” Suddenly Nagisa is there, bracing herself on the ledge next to Rei, the rest of her body still dangling in the water. She’s giving Rei the kicked-puppy eyes.

Nagisa is slimy and slippery from the oily river. Her hair is  _ just _ long enough to pull into a little bunny-tail at the base of her skull, though sopping wet like this, it more resembles a short, thick rat-tail. And her face is way,  _ way _ too close to Rei’s thighs.

“Come into the water,” Nagisa whines, batting her eyelids, and then her chin is  _ in _ Rei’s lap, still staring up at her dolefully.

Rei squeaks, flushes red all the way to the tips of her ears, and falls into the water. In that order.

Fortunately for Rei’s life—and Nagisa’s conscience, probably—the water is only chest-deep, so there’s only a little bit of flailing and spluttering as Rei gathers her bearings.

Nagisa and Makoto try to teach her a few strokes.  _ Try, _ being the operative word, because whatever she does, Rei just seems to sink like a stone, or like the refrigerator that they found at the bottom of the river once.

Rei’s ready to give up—swimming isn’t  _ that _ important in a zombie-infested post apocalypse, she reasons—when she receives some interesting words from Haruka, just the two of them, at the edge of the river.

She tries the butterfly stroke. It puts emphasis on the upper body muscle, something she’s always had in excess. It works, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever forget the feeling of  _ floating _ for the first time.

When Rei shows her swimming off to the other three the next morning, to whooping from Nagisa and clapping from Makoto and approving eye-glints from Haruka, it feels like a different kind of floating.

Now that the struggling to swim debacle is over, Rei can move on to the next problem: trying to forget the feeling of Nagisa’s hot breath on her cold, cold thighs.

* * *

iv.

* * *

They have two sleeping bags between the four of them.

Haruka, Makoto, and Nagisa used to trade off, having only one. Two of them would share the sleeping bag, and the third would use the ragged old couch-throw that they had picked up somewhere along the way.

They were very relieved when Rei revealed she had another sleeping bag on her.

The car is too small for any sane person to try sleeping in without gaining a permanent crick in their neck, nevermind two people squeezed into one sleeping bag.

They sleep anywhere with shelter, really. Mostly crumbling warehouses and hollow apartment buildings, where they can barricade the entrances for some sense of safety.

Makoto shares with Haruka, and Rei shares with Nagisa. It’s the fair way, with Rei and Makoto both being rather broad, where Haruka is a little slimmer, and Nagisa is tiny compared to the rest of them.

Nagisa is a clinger. Rei suspects that if they actually had real beds to sleep in, she’d be the type to starfish all over and take up most of the bed.

As it is, Nagisa always hugs Rei like she’s a particularly soft teddy bear. Which Rei knows she  _ isn’t, _ she’s all scar tissue and bulky muscle. Hugging Rei must feel like hugging a tree.

It’s something she thinks about on nights like these, staring at the grey, moonlit floorboards of the attic they’re staying in, secretly still shaking with post-adrenaline jitters from a particularly close call earlier.

“Hm? Rei-chan?” There’s a rustling below her, and Nagisa’s head pokes out from the sleeping bag. “Still awake?”

“Go back to sleep, Nagisa-kun,”

“I  _ ca-an’t,” _ she whisper-groans. “Every time I close my eyes, I see that zombie grabbing your hair again!”

Something in Rei’s chest shifts. Softens, maybe. “I’m perfectly fine now,”

Nagisa blows a quiet raspberry against the bare skin of Rei’s collarbone. “Wrong,” she points out as Rei squirms in her arms, holding in involuntary wheezes. “You can’t sleep!”

“I just need a minute to—calm down,” Rei insists, trying to ease her own wound-up frame.

“Oh!” Nagisa’s eyes brighten, star-filled and colourless in the darkness. “We should tell each other stories from our past!”

“Nagisa-kun, I must remind you that we need eight hours of sleep a night in order to remain functional,”

“Oh, fine.  _ One  _ story each,” Nagisa leaned up, so that the tips of their noses were brushing. “So, Rei-chan, where were you when the outbreak happened?”

Rei closes her eyes. It’s always been a… strange memory. Most of her recollections can easily be separated into two categories. Pre-apocalypse and post-apocalypse.

But this one in particular, was the turning point. It’s where the two lives merge, a traversal of worlds. It’s dizzying to put her cushy past and her present life on the same level.

“I was… studying,” Rei flushes lightly in the dark. It’s upsetting to think of how much time she spent buried in textbooks, only for it to all be for naught after so much of the population was wiped out. “My brother came upstairs to tell me to pack a bag and get into the car.”

“You didn’t have a car when we found you,” Nagisa says softly, huddling a little closer.

“Yes,” Rei twitches, wanting to adjust glasses that weren’t there. “We got stuck in traffic, as I’m sure you can believe.”

“Oh,” Nagisa blinks, and the dark is quiet for a moment. “Are you finished the story?”

“That’s my tale for the night,”

A huff of warm breath. “Well, what story do you want to hear from me? I have lots to tell!”

Rei already knows what Nagisa and the others did when during the outbreak. Makoto and Nagisa heard it on the radio while getting ice-cream together, and then they’d sprinted to Haruka’s house, leaving the ice-cream cones on the pavement behind them. (Something Nagisa still regrets.) The three of them hid in the abandoned local swimming pool building. It’s a story Rei has heard a hundred and one times.

“How did you get the scar on your finger?” Rei asks, then wants to take it back immediately. Scars can be… they can hurt to talk about. She should have waited for Nagisa to share the story on her own terms.

There’s a moment of silence, then rustling as Nagisa wriggles around in their sleeping bag. “This one?” She pulls out her arm, and wags the scar in question in Rei’s face. Rei nods.

Silence. Nagisa’s face is uncharacteristically stony.

“I slipped with a kitchen knife,”

Rei splutters loudly, too loudly, and shoves a hand over her own mouth. “What?” Her voice is muffled.

“Haru-chan tried to show me how to skin a rabbit. My hand twitched, and I sliced my finger open,” Nagisa’s voice is still flat and grave as a funeral, and Rei wonders if she should feel bad for laughing. 

Until Nagisa’s face cracks into a great, beaming grin and she turns and silences her giggles into Rei’s shoulder.

“Rei-cha-an! You looked so serious for a second there!”

“I thought it was going to be a serious story!”

“Rei, Nagisa, we have to get up early in the morning.” Makoto’s voice rings tired from her and Haruka’s sleeping bag.

Rei and Nagisa exchange wide-eyed, horrified glances.

“Apologies, Makoto-senpai!”

“Sorry, Mako-chan!”

Nagisa screws her eyes shut and buries her face in Rei’s chest, arms tightening. She passes out soon after, mumbling something about squid and lanterns.

Rei finds herself dozing off as well. Her muscles relax, uncoiled from the light-hearted laughter. She closes her eyes, and lets Nagisa’s hair tickle her face.

(And maybe buries her forehead in it, as well. Just a little bit. She can get away with that.)

* * *

v.

* * *

Rei and Nagisa are good fighters.

All survivors have to be. There is no existing in this world if you don’t eventually pick up a weapon and learn to use it. A bat, a knife, an axe, a sledgehammer, it doesn’t matter as long as you can hit with it, and hit hard.

Rei is good at hitting hard. Nagisa may not be, but she’s more durable than she looks, always gaining momentum near the end of a fight when everyone else is slowing down and catching their breath.

They’re looking for supplies in an overgrown city park, while Makoto and Haruka stay back and guard the main camp.

When a group of wandering infected strays a little too close and grow aggressive, Rei isn’t alone this time. Nagisa is right beside her, spear clutched in both fists.

There aren’t words to say how much better it feels to fight alongside another person.

Attacking zombies melee style—it’s a pattern. A rhythm that you fall into when you’ve been battling them off for long enough. Move in close, swing your weapon at their head (always, always aim for the head), and dart out of their reach before they can grab you.  _ Never _ let them grab you.

This fighting style is easiest, of course, when you have someone to guard your weak points.

But here’s the thing; it only works with wanderers.

There are three types of infected. It starts with the earliest stage, occurring during the few days immediately after the bite, before the aggressiveness sets in. The infected person mostly just displays symptoms of disorientation and personality changes. This is the best time to kill them.

The last stage is the wandering stage. It sets in a month after the initial bite, and lasts for as long as the zombie lives. The infected roams around aimlessly, alone or in groups, mostly docile until alerted of any mammalian presence.

Rei strikes her bat downwards one final time, foot planted firmly on the zombie’s half-decayed chest, and the thing’s head breaks open like an overripe watermelon.

“Ew, Rei-chan, you’ve got brain all over your legs,” Nagisa tosses her spear from hand to hand, looking at Rei’s pants with an expression that can only be described as  _ devastated. _ “How am I gonna hug you ever again without thinking of brain juice?”

Rei steps off the bony corpse. “I think you’ll be fi—”

A figure drenched in red erupts in the distance, and every organ in Rei’s body attempts to slide up her throat.

All that tumbles out is a  _ “NAGISA—!” _ before the thing is on her.

There’s a stage in between the first and the last stage. The in-between lasts for about three weeks, meaning that finding zombies in this stage is both rare and incredibly unfortunate. It’s called the  _ excitative stage, _ wherein the infected is highly reactive and aggressive. Nagisa always calls these the ‘excited zombies’, no matter how many times Rei corrects her.

The thing’s eyes are madly rolling in its head, it’s dripping gore—likely from small animals or anything else that may have provoked it—and it’s just grabbed Nagisa by the shoulders.

Rei grabs her bat before she thinks. She steps forward, then again. Nagisa is still and white as a statue. She’s not even breathing.

Rei tilts the bat until it’s at a 45 degree angle to the ground, and rams it upwards into the excited’s face.

Not before it clamps its jaws into Nagisa’s shoulder.

The tip of the bat connects to its head with a  _ crack _ that reverberates off the trees around them. The thing falls to the knotted grass, and Rei only manages one swing before she drops the bat and whips around.

“Nagisa!” she yells, rushing forward to grasp Nagisa’s elbow. “Nagisa, Nagisa, let me see.”

Nagisa is swaying just a little. The corner of her mouth is trembling. A tangled curl has fallen into her eyes, and she doesn’t move to brush it away.

She doesn’t move, even as Rei shakily unbuttons the top of her shirt, pulling it to the side to reveal where the zombie had bitten her.

Rei stares at her shoulder, willing herself not to shake, or frighten Nagisa more than she already is. There are clear, teeth-shaped indents in the skin, a semicircle of purple, but—

—the skin isn’t broken. 

Rei checks the back of Nagisa’s shoulder, and it’s the same situation.

“Nagisa,” Rei begins, then clears her throat, correcting herself. “Nagisa-kun. It’s alright. You’re alright.”

One small hand reaches up, and presses against the slobbery marks mashed into her skin. “Oh,” Nagisa says, blinking slowly. “That’s… okay, then.”

And then it’s all Rei can do to hug her as tightly as humanly possible.

A part of Rei wonders at this; it’s always, always Nagisa who initiates hugs, who jumps up and throws her arms around Rei first. Rei can’t remember the last time she’s initiated a hug with…  _ anybody. _

Rei doesn't care. She doesn't  _ care _ as she crushes her best friend to her chest, trembling. Nagisa isn’t.

She doesn't care because the seconds in between seeing that zombie clamp down on Nagisa's shoulder and seeing the skin unbroken were the worst in her entire life.

Rei doesn't cry, but she does shake.

“That was close,” she croaks, staring straight ahead. “That was really close, Nagisa-kun.”

And suddenly hands are grasping at her shirt, her dirty, worn t-shirt, grabbing fistfuls of the fabric at her back like anchors. Small, strong hands.

“Rei-chan,” is all Nagisa says. Her voice wobbles just a little on the  _ chan. _

She leans her forehead on Rei's chest, just below the hollow of her collarbone. Neither of them cry, but Nagisa doesn't let go for a long time.

* * *

+vi.

* * *

The four of them find permanent sanctuary in what used to be a boarding school.

This one is different. They’ve found other communities before, but the leaders have always been either hostile, or had a mildly cult-like following, and they moved on.

This one is run by Matsuoka Rin.

Well, not  _ run, _ per se, though Rin wouldn’t correct anyone who said that. Co-run, with several others.

Rin is the childhood friend of Nagisa, Makoto, and Haruka. The tears and sobs and hugs of that reunion were… overwhelming. And confusing, for onlookers who had no idea what was going on. But Rei would be lying if she said she wasn’t happy for them. At least they can stop the lamenting over ‘Rin-Rin’ now.

Rules of staying at Samezuka are simple. You receive food and shelter and other necessities, in exchange for contributing to the work that needed to be done around the community. Farming, or manning the generator, or guarding the entrance and exit points of the building. A fair exchange.

Non-essential items, such as novels or jewellery or home decor, can be acquired in the courtyard-turned-marketplace in exchange for other goods the buyer might have in excess, like extra turnips or chicken’s eggs.

The residents of Samezuka are surprisingly diverse. While a good portion of the population is made up of (former?) students, many other survivors have stumbled upon this place and made it their home. There is a couple with a six-month-old baby, and there is an eighty-three year old man who specializes in herbal remedies.

On the anniversary of the outbreak, Samezuka holds a festival. Rei, along with most other newcomers, finds this bizarre, but the residents said something about being thankful for surviving every year up to this, and celebrating the lives of everyone who didn’t make it. It’s still odd, but in a way, Rei understands.

The marketplace in the courtyard is decked in lanterns, and many choose to dress in any traditional attire that they can get their hands on. Some people open new stands just for this event; selling near anything, from ever-coveted batteries, to hand-made toothbrushes, to potted peppermint and lemon balm.

Nagisa lives for it. She flits from stall to stall, chatting with the owners, ogling pretty knives, scheming to get Haruka and Rin to talk to each other. Rei goes along with it. She enjoys the celebrations, too.

Later on in the night, there’s a dance held in the main hall. Once again, it’s strung up with lanterns, and a band plays in the background on a beat-up piano, two flutes, a hand-made drum, and a guitar missing a string.

It’s the first music Rei has heard since the outbreak, excluding hummed songs around the campfire. It’s beautiful.

She hovers at the edge, back pressed to the desks that surround mismatched liquor bottles, serving as a bar. Rei watches the dancefloor.

And it's odd, because dance has always been a thing of beauty for Rei. Never participating in it for herself, having a physique much more suited for the track team, Rei had gone through several phases in her life with a mild obsession with dancers. Ballerinas, ballroom-dancers, even ice-skaters.

She can see them in her mind's eye now, threading themselves through the music, turning their limbs to liquid, weightless in the harsh lights of the ring. Lithe and effortless. Graceful.

The people here look nothing like that.

Granted, it's not a surprise. Those videos had been of professionals, people who had trained their whole lives to dance like that. The residents here are normal people with better things to worry about.

The surprise lay in that they don’t  _ try _ to emulate ballet or ballroom-dancing. They don't dance for beauty or grace. They sway awkwardly and spin each other in dizzying circles and dip dangerously, dangerously low.

They’re doing it for fun.

Makoto and Haru are dancing slowly (too slow for the relatively upbeat music) in one dark corner, so Rei knows better than to bother them in the Zone. Rin is deep in conversation with Nitori, and Gou hovers nearby, completely unsubtly.

That just leaves…

“Rei-chan! I got us drinks!”

Someone small and bouncy seems to be trying to hook her chin over Rei’s shoulder. “You’re too short, Nagisa-kun.”

A warm huff brushes the back of Rei’s neck. “Well then, both of these are for me now.”

“I’m not sure that I’d trust anything you’ve brought, anyway.” Rei turns and peers down at the mugs in Nagisa’s hands.

“Chillax, Rei-chan,” Nagisa takes a drink from one of the mugs. It has Samezuka Academy’s name printed across the front. “Sou-chan wouldn’t sell me alcohol, anyway. Said I was ‘underage’ or something.”

“We are. The apocalypse is no excuse to break the law.”

“You’re kidding, right? That was a joke, right, Rei-chan?”

“Underage drinking is no joke.”

Nagisa snorts, and shoves the drinks onto the bar behind them. “Just dance with me,”

“You’re gonna go through all the trouble of getting drinks and then not drink them?” Rei allows herself to be led onto the dancefloor.

“Oh, I got ‘em for free, anyway.” Nagisa winks. “You know Sou-chan loves me.”

Rei doesn’t say anything about that, but she can feel the skepticism crossing her face. “So, everyone gets, what, two free drinks?”

“No!” Nagisa jolts indignantly, then slumps. “Three drinks per person.”

Rei grins. Nagisa scoffs, and gently pushes Rei face to the side.

“Focus on dancing. You could use the practice.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said it all with that evil smile on your face,”

“My smile isn’t—OW! Are you sure  _ I’m _ the one who needs practice dancing?”

Nagisa smiles, sharp and catlike. “That wasn’t an accident,”

“Why am I friends with you, again?”

“I don’t think you had a choice.” Nagisa lifts an arm and spins Rei around, forcing her to crane her neck due to the height difference. “Murky water, zombies, near-death situation. Ring any bells?”

“Those words could describe any post-apocalyptic situation at all, Nagisa-kun.”

“Maybe so,” Nagisa chews her lip, staring up at Rei. “Hey Rei-chan, do you remember that time I almost died?”

Rei furrows her brow. “The Onsen Incident?”

“No, the other one.”

“The time you poured chili sauce directly into your eyes?”

“I didn’t know—No, I’m talking about the time the zombie bit me.” Presumably unconsciously, Nagisa shifts her left shoulder in memory of the incident.

“Oh.”

Nagisa stands on her tiptoes in her filthy, once-red sneakers. “Hm. You know what I was thinking, the moment that zombie bit me?”

In the background, a guy dips the girl he was dancing with a little too low and drops her. A series of groans and gasps and guilty laughter bubble up around them. “What were you thinking?” Rei asks her best friend.

“Well, I was thinking all the usual ‘Oh-my-God-I’m-gonna-die’ spiel, as you do, but underneath all of that I was going through my bucket list and thinking of all the things I’ve never done. I’ve never rollerbladed before, I’ve never ridden a motorbike, I’d never been to an onsen—at the time,” Nagisa adds, upon seeing Rei’s upcoming objection. “I’ve never learned how to do a French plait the way Haru-chan does, and I’ve never kissed Rei-chan.”

Rei wants to adjust her glasses, but both hands were on Nagisa’s waist. “Excuse… me?”

“I’ve never kissed Rei-chan, or told her that I love her and her stupid beautiful face, or spent five hours running my fingers through her hair, and before now, I’d never even danced with her before.” Nagisa shrugs, a curl coming untucked from her pigtails and landing in her eyes. “And I’ve never watched the Western movie about the dinosaurs.”

A weak laugh escapes Rei against her will. “I don’t—I don’t know about Jurassic Park, if that’s what you were referring to, but,” she swallows, bracing herself, “You can, uh, k-kiss me if you want to.”

There was unnerving quiet for a single moment, and then a flush explodes across Nagisa’s face. “Really?!”

“Yeah.” Rei turns her eyes to the space just above Nagisa’s head. “I love you. I think—it’s pretty obvious at this point. I’ve liked you for a really long time.”

Nagisa bounces on her toes once. “How long?” Rei still didn’t meet her gaze, but she could  _ hear _ the teeny-tiny grin in her voice.

“Remember that time you shoved a spear down a zombie’s throat?”

Nagisa leans her forehead against Rei’s chest and  _ laughs, _ snorty and warm and the only thing existing in the universe in that moment.

They sway in place, out of sync with the jazzy, upbeat tune thrumming through the air.

“Hmph,” Nagisa lifts her head. “Can I take you up on that kiss offer, Rei-chan?”

Rei manages one shaky nod.

Nagisa stands up on her tiptoes again, as far as she can go, leans in close to Rei, and hovers there for a moment, lips millimeters from Rei’s own.

Their lips connect slowly, gently, light and inexperienced. There’s fumbling of hands, and Rei wonders how she’s supposed to move her mouth, and then Nagisa pulls back.

Rei’s entire face flushes hot, and she frantically wonders if she did something wrong, but Nagisa grins at her. “That was pretty good!” Nagisa’s face is red all the way to the tips of her ears. “Whad’you think?”

“Yeah, I think that was pretty—yeah.” Rei sputters.

Nagisa beams, and then leans in close again. Rei goes red, wondering if she should prepare for another kiss, but Nagisa seems to miss the mark, landing in the soft of Rei’s cheek.

“Uh, Nagisa-kun?” It seems like a mistake, but Nagisa kisses Rei’s cheek again, right on the peak of her cheekbone.

And again, a kiss to her other cheek. To the corner of her jaw. Between her eyebrows, the tip of her nose, the barely-there scar on her temple, just off the centre of her forehead.

Light, chaste kisses that leave Rei flushed and nearly-laughing, partially from the fluttering tickles left by the kisses, partially from the ridiculousness of the situation, partially from bone-deep happiness.

“Na-Nagisa,” Rei gasps, just barely, then corrects herself. “Nagisa-kun, what are you  _ doing?” _

Nagisa pulls back, lips red and eyes light. “You don’t like it?”

“No! I—it’s not that,” Rei wondered how to communicate how much she  _ does  _ like it without making a fool out of herself.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No, I’m, uh, just wondering  _ why _ you’re doing it.” Rei glanced away, focusing harder on the band’s acoustics than her own embarrassment.

“We-ell, I guess it’s just that—” Nagisa smacks a kiss to the corner of Rei’s mouth— “I want to kiss  _ all _ of you,”

Rei thinks of bulky muscle, and long scars, and callous-roughened hands. “All?” she hums, not particularly meant to be said out loud.

“Of course,  _ all,” _ Nagisa huffs. “Why would I want to kiss half a person?”

“I don’t—” Rei swallows, tongue heavy— “I guess you wouldn’t.”

Nagisa looks at her curiously. “You alright, Rei-chan?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” Rei smiles at her, and it’s real.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Maybe some other time,” Around them, the music is as thick and bright as sunlight on a cloudless day. “This isn’t exactly the scene for it,”

“Okay,” Nagisa hums, wiggling a little. “Hey, Rei-chan, do you think I could lift you? Like they do in ice-skating?”

“That’s how you’d break your back!”

“But it’d definitely be worth it, right?” Nagisa suddenly lets go of Rei’s shoulders, leaving two cold spots, and leans backwards. “Dip me!”

“Wha—Nagisa-kun!” And Rei just barely manages to gain control over her arms in time to catch her dance-partner before she hits the ground. “Please give me some warning!”

“You caught me, didn’t you?” Nagisa shifts so that it actually looks like Rei is dipping her, rather that trying to stop her from cracking her head open.

“You’re going to give yourself a concussion, one of these days,”

“Good thing I have a thick skull, as Rin-chan would say,” Nagisa winks, knocking her temple.

Rei sighs, and gives into a months-long temptation; she kisses the smug look off Nagisa's face.

**Author's Note:**

> (the zombie infection in this is literally just rabies taken to the extreme.)
> 
> don't ask me what drove me to write a genderbent zombie apocalypse fic. i don't know either.
> 
> also, just to clarify; whether or not anyone outside the iwatobi swim club is genderbent is completely up to you. i left it ambiguous on purpose.
> 
> oh and yes, the dance scene is completely and 100% inspired by [this trailer](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=btmN-bWwv0A&noapp=1&client=mv-google) for The Last of Us II. (warning though: the dance scene transitions almost immediately into someone being stabbed in the throat.)
> 
> what can i say, i'm weak for girls dancing.
> 
> my tumblr is @brightwritesstuff as always!


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